


skin maps

by oogenesis



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9061864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogenesis/pseuds/oogenesis
Summary: The matter of scars and memories.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this uhhhh really fast as a self-indulgent reward for finishing both secret santa and another fic i've been working on for weeks. also kind of an exercise in atmosphere i guess. past-life tomoshipping and post-canon barian quasi-angst are two of my favorite things anyway enjoy

It’s soft and quiet in the royal bedroom, in the royal bed, and they are exploring each other's skin as a bird twitters outside.

“That one there,” says Nasch, tracing one finger over the perfectly straight scar across Durbe’s shoulder blades, “that’s from last year, isn’t it?”

Durbe nods.

“Idiot,” mutters Nasch.

“Saved your life, didn’t it?”

“There are ways to get someone out of the path of an assassin’s arrow without putting oneself in harm’s way,” says Nasch evenly, and rubs along the shiny pink raised line.

“It only grazed me.”

“Still.”

“How sweet of you to care,” murmurs Durbe, then turns around with a rustle of sheets and traces the last vestiges of a crooked, wandering white line from Nasch’s ribcage down to his hip. Nearly faded, still just barely visible. “Like you’re not so willing to put yourself in harm’s way yourself.”

Nasch shrugs and looks away with a huff.

“I had to track down the man who did it while you were getting urgent medical attention.”

“And then you broke the law,” Nasch reminds him.

“I’m outside your jurisdiction, remember? And I didn’t know whether you were going to live or die, I wasn’t going to wait for an official mandate of execution.”

Nasch gives a fond half-smile - a rare sight that is less rare in the pale-marbled privacy of the two of them together, the wine-colored bedsheets wrinkled under them. “You can be terrifying sometimes, you know that.”

“So are you,” Durbe reminds him, and pulls Nasch’s hand up to the underside of his jaw, to the scar there. “Remember?”

Nasch sighs, tracing a finger along it. “How could I not?”

“That was possibly the stupidest and most reckless thing I’ve ever seen,” sighs Durbe. “Storming a hostage situation all on your own -”

“With you as the hostage, how could I not?” says Nasch, and leans in and runs his lips along the scar, gentle kisses on Durbe’s neck. Durbe shivers, presses Nasch’s head closer. “With them holding a knife to your throat.”

Durbe’s hands find the edge of the scar on Nasch’s abdomen and follow it down to his hip, down lower still. “You’re a hopeless romantic.”

Nasch’s breath stutters at the touch. “Am not,” he murmurs against Durbe’s neck.

“A hopeless romantic with a sword,” says Durbe. “A dangerous romantic.”

“Then that makes two of us,” says Nasch, and his lips move up over Durbe’s throat, up to his face.

“So you admit it,” mumbles Durbe against Nasch’s mouth, and the conversation rather fails to continue from there.

* * *

It’s very loud in what was formerly the Kamishiro sibling apartment and is now the combined living space of seven former emperors turned ordinary human students. Mizael and Alit are dueling, cards-only no-AR dueling in the living room, and their combined excessiveness as well as Gilag’s excited running commentary is making things quite noisy. That and Vector is listening to something hideous and bass-boosted in another of the rooms, circulating muffled through the walls.

Which is why it takes a while for Durbe’s persistent knocking on the bathroom door to get a response. “I’ll be out in a bit,” comes Nasch’s voice from within, and then there’s the abrupt clunk and small sudden silence of the shower being turned off. After a short while the door opens and there’s Nasch.

He’s wet, half-naked, wearing only a towel. This is not a new development; seven people and one bathroom means everyone’s gotten more or less used to the awkwardness of showers and changing. But the closeness of it catches Durbe by surprise, jumps in his throat, and an image flashes before his eyes -

“What are you staring at?” asks Nasch, Nasch with the water beading on his shoulders, trickling down his skin, his hair slicked to his neck and shoulders in small eddied swirls.

Durbe raises a hand and traces a finger down where the scar would be, ribcage then crooked-meandering down to where it would disappear beneath the towel. A moment later he remembers who he is, where he is, which life which body, and his face burns. He snatches the hand away. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” says Nasch quietly. “We all get moments like that -”

\- moments of forgetting the present and remembering the past, slingshotted ever-so-briefly to another life. They all do. Durbe nods.

A long silence stretches between them, made deeper by the cocoon of noise around them - Mizael Alit Gilag’s voices in overlapping confusion, Vector’s awful music continuing to pump through the house. A drop of water makes its jerky persistent way down Nasch’s shoulder over the outside of his chest.

“You killed someone over that, didn’t you?” asks Nasch, and Durbe jumps a little before replying, “Yes.” It feels ridiculous now - saying this from the body of a high schooler who studies and reads and doesn’t go outside much. The grown knight who wielded a sword and loved a king is centuries distant -

Nasch’s hand comes up and warmly wet fingers trace over Durbe’s neck.

“They had a knife to your throat,” says Nasch, in a voice like he’s trying to remember the answer to a test question, “right?”

Durbe swallows. He’s sure Nasch can feel the motion of it against his hand. “Yes.”

Another silence stretches between them, holding them tight together.

Nasch opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something else, closes it, then says abruptly, “Bathroom’s free now.”

He ducks into his room and Durbe goes into the bathroom that is still warm from the steam of the shower.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and feedback highly appreciated as always


End file.
